LOS ANGELES—The Getty Villa in Malibu will open to the public on Saturday, January 28, 2006. Following a major renovation, this cultural landmark returns with a new mission as an educational center and museum dedicated to the study of the arts and cultures of ancient Greece, Rome, and Etruria. The Getty Villa will serve a varied audience through the permanent collection, changing exhibitions, conservation, scholarship, research, and public programs.

Admission to the Getty Villa will be FREE. Advance, timed tickets will be required for each individual and can be obtained online atwww.getty.eduor by phone at 310-440-7300, beginning November 3, 2005, at 9:00 a.m. PST. The ticketing process will allow for a smooth, evenly paced flow of visitors through the intimate setting of the Villa.

“The Getty Villa, which was the site of the original J. Paul Getty Museum, has been an important cultural landmark in Los Angeles for some time, and one that our Trustees and staff are pleased to share again with a variety of audiences,” says Barry Munitz, president and chief executive officer of the J. Paul Getty Trust. “Recently transformed, this companion setting to the Getty Center in Los Angeles will be an important gateway connecting today’s audiences to the ancient world. The Villa brings together the Getty’s four programs in a remarkable concentration of resources focused on the classical past, shaped by a strong dedication to education at all levels, serving adults, families, students, as well as scholars and specialized professionals. In a rare commitment, even the site itself serves as an essential part of our learning and teaching mission.”

Three inaugural exhibitions at the J. Paul Getty Museum at the Getty Villa will celebrate the opening. Antiquity & Photography: Early Views of Ancient Mediterranean Sites (January 28 – May 1, 2006) explores the efforts of pioneering photographers to capture and study the visual remnants of the ancient world. The Getty Villa Reimagined (January 28 – May 8, 2006) looks back on the Villa’s history and traces the vision that guided the development of the present site. Molten Color: Glassmaking in Antiquity (January 28 – July 24, 2006) celebrates the recent acquisition of the Oppenländer collection of more than 350 pieces of beautiful and rare ancient glass.

Bordered by coastal mountains and the Pacific Ocean, the Getty Villa evokes the classical world in its architecture, landscape, and gardens, which have been planted with species known to have flourished in the ancient Mediterranean. Boston-based architects Machado and Silvetti Associates, Inc., fused contemporary design ideas with architecture inspired by antiquity to provide support for the Getty Trust’s four programs: the Getty Conservation Institute, the Getty Foundation, the J. Paul Getty Museum, and the Getty Research Institute. The four programs will work closely together on activities at the Villa, as they do at the Getty Center.

The renovated J. Paul Getty Museum at the Getty Villa includes new galleries, which feature steel support systems hidden in the walls and floors to secure large and heavy works of art and protect them in case of earthquakes. Among other highlights of the Villa are the new 250-seat Auditorium and the 450-seat Barbara and Lawrence Fleischman Theater, an outdoor theater based on ancient prototypes that allow contemporary audiences to experience reimagined classical performances as they were once viewed. The site also incorporates new space for Getty staff and scholars, including state-of-the art conservation laboratories, seminar rooms, a classroom, and the Research Library at the Villa with around 20,000 volumes.

The Getty Villa will house the J. Paul Getty Museum’s collection of about 44,000 antiquities. Over 1,200 works will be on view in 23 galleries devoted to the permanent collection, now organized by theme, with five additional galleries for changing and loan exhibitions. Two educational spaces will offer alternative ways to engage with art. The Family Forum, a hands-on discovery room for families, features activities that encourage shared learning experiences, while another interactive installation, the TimeScape Room, focuses on time, place, and artistic style in the ancient Mediterranean.

Research and scholarly activities at the Villa will be fueled by the presence of the Museum’s antiquities collection and the resources of the Research Library. As is the case with the ongoing scholars program at the Getty Research Institute, the new Villa Scholars Program will have an annual theme that serves as a focus for research and programs. A distinguished figure in the field will be honored as Villa Professor each year and will collaborate with Getty staff responsible for the intellectual direction of the program.

The Getty Villa will also be home to the UCLA/Getty Master's Program on the Conservation of Ethnographic and Archaeological Materials, the first master's program on this subject in the United States.

Complementing the exhibitions and installations will be a wide variety of public programs. They include an annual outdoor theater production, staged play readings, musical performances, film screenings, family festivals, artist demonstrations, lectures, workshops, and gallery and studio courses.

The 64-acre Getty Villa site in Malibu was purchased by J. Paul Getty in 1945. Nine years later, he opened the J. Paul Getty Museum to the public in his Ranch House, where he showcased his collection of art, of which Greek and Roman antiquities were an important element. The original villa was conceived in 1968, based on the Villa dei Papiri, a first-century Roman country house. The villa in Malibu became the new location of the J. Paul Getty Museum in 1974; it closed for renovation six months prior to the opening of the Getty Center in 1997. When the reimagined Getty Villa opens this January, the Getty Trust’s four programs will serve visitors from two locations: the Getty Center in Los Angeles and the Getty Villa in Malibu.

The J. Paul Getty Trust is an international cultural and philanthropic institution devoted to the visual arts that features the Getty Conservation Institute, the Getty Foundation, the J. Paul Getty Museum, and the Getty Research Institute. The J. Paul Getty Trust and Getty programs serve a varied audience from two locations: the Getty Center in Los Angeles and the Getty Villa in Malibu.